There’s been significant beating around the bush and looking for alternative solutions, but after talks this week, the Indian Department of Telecom has flat-out demanded RIM provide full encryption codes to BlackBerry transmissions, or they’ll pull the devices from the country. Pretty harsh, but this whole thing has been going on for awhile now, and I could see why the government wants an immediate solution so it doesn’t drag on any longer. RIM cemented their opposition earlier this week, so things are looking pretty grim yet again.
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Let India do without! What guarantee is there that they will restrict their snooping to “Indian traffic” and not leak the codes?
there are NO CODES
there are NO CODES
there are NO CODES
well in BESland definately. BIS is a bit different as RIM host the server themselves and just ‘paint’ it a bit to look like the carriers’
In BESland the only two bits that have the ‘message encryption/decryption keys’ are the device and the BES which is ‘ahem’ behind the firewall.
Does anyone really think that the solution would have so many ’security certifications’ let alone the recent sale of 19K devices to the FBI if Mike or Jim could roll out of bed and say “hey lets read John Mayer’s love notes to Jen today”
Haha, you almost make it sound like Mike and Jim are rolling out of bed together, Bertie.
That’s a solid point, though. Since we’re only hearing a part of the story, it’s likely that they’re talking about BIS customers, but I get the feeling that PIN messaging is also an issue for them, since there was some talk about tough-to-crack communication between BlackBerry devices.
There are backdoors through most firewalls and thats all that protects a BES server. Sounds like the Indians are incompetent. The encryption keys can be accessed by cloning an IT administrators station and using their password. Its not easy, but it must happen all the time, otherwise the cops in the US would be screaming about it. The simple option for RIM is to make an API available so software can be quietly plugged into BES without the IT guru detecting it.
BIS is supposed to be protected by RIM. They supposedly have a whole team of people who do stuff to protect BIS from hackers and the cops. Who knows though? Maybe RIM made it easy for the cops to read your email. Stupid, and if they did, I’m buying an iPhone, the only reason I use blackberry is for the privacy.
Seems to be good enough for crimals…
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=19c562bb-7605-4892-ad87-61ff4e6667ad&k=41023